Friday, May 06, 2005

UKIP won it for Labour

The incredible, untold story of the general election is the effect that UKIP (and to a lesser extent Veritas) has had on the outcome. Overall, on current results, the combined votes of these two parties affected the outcome of 25 seats which might have otherwise gone to the Tories.

In all, this translates to 16 seats which would have been lost to Labour and nine to the Lib-Dems, potentially reducing Blair's overall majority to 34 – an entirely unworkable majority.

Had UKIP (and Veritas) not intervened (or the Tories had managed the threat), the political environment would have been transformed.

For a start, Kennedy would not have been crowing about his "successes" – with his gains cut from 16 to seven, the Tories would be lauding a major victory and Labour would be thinking very hard of how it was going to survive, with Blair firmly in the departure lounge.

Amazingly, the MSM has not picked this up, but this seems to me to be the penalty the Tories are paying for neglecting the EU issue. Had Howard pushed the Tory EU policy, I believe that the UKIP/Veritas effect could have been contained, and the Tories could be 25 seats better off.

In effect, UKIP has done more damage to the Tories in this election than in all the other elections combined that it has fought and transformed the political environment.